Harrow Council Funding

Debate between Gareth Thomas and Rishi Sunak

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) on securing this debate. His pride in his home is evident to all, and I pay tribute to that. It is good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) here; he is also a champion of his constituency, particularly when it comes to matters of local government. We are grateful for and appreciate his particular experience and insights in our debates.

I welcome the opportunity to respond to the important points that the hon. Member for Harrow West raised. In doing so, I thought it would be helpful to use a framework that I like to use—my vision of the role of local government, which consists of three main areas. The first is to drive economic growth, the second to help the most vulnerable in our society and the third to build strong communities. If hon. Members will allow me, I would like to take those areas in turn, specifically in relation to Harrow, and address the points raised.

The draft local government finance settlement, which was published last week, confirms that core spending power across the nation is forecast to increase from £45 billion this year to £46.4 billion next year, representing a cash increase of 2.8% and a real-terms increase in resources available to local authorities. In the next financial year, Harrow Council’s core spending power will rise to £180 million, representing a 3.7% cash increase, which is substantially above the average for England and, indeed, other London local authorities. Core spending power is the standard measure of a local council’s financial resources, and it includes money from central Government grant, council tax, business rates baseline and further specific grants for adult social care and the new homes bonus.

Beyond grants, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East said, driving economic growth is the only way to ensure the vibrancy of our local communities and to raise the vital funds we need to sustain our public services. Business rates retention is one such opportunity. Under the current business rates retention system, local authorities estimate that they will retain around £2.5 billion in business rates growth this year, which is a significant revenue stream on top of the core settlement funding.

This year, all London boroughs, the Greater London Authority and the City of London are jointly piloting 100% business rates retention. Based on their forecasts, the London pilot pool would retain an additional £348 million compared with the current system. This vital incremental income supports a number of strategic investment projects in London, including investment in high-speed broadband in Harrow and other west London boroughs.

As we confirmed in the provisional settlement, all London authorities, including Harrow, will continue to pilot increased business rates retention at the level of 75% in forthcoming year. I am confident that, when it comes to supporting growth and financial sustainability, Harrow is getting what it needs.

Beyond growth, one of the most undeniably crucial roles that local government continues to play is in helping the most vulnerable in society. It is local authorities that support the elderly, the disabled and our children in need. I am in no doubt about how challenging it has been for councils to drive efficiencies, particularly in the face of growing pressures on social care, as they contribute to rebuilding our economy and tackling the deficit we inherited from the last Labour Government.

I pay tribute to the work of councillors up and down the country, which is why I was delighted that the Budget committed another £1 billion of extra funding for local services, with a strong focus on supporting some of our most vulnerable groups, including £650 million for adult and children’s social care in the next financial year. Of that, £240 million will go towards easing winter pressures, with the flexibility, as requested by councils, to use the remaining £410 million for either adult or children’s services and, where necessary, to relieve demands on the NHS. I am pleased to confirm that, as a result of these payments, Harrow Council will receive an additional £2.63 million in the next financial year. That is on top of the £240 million announced in October to address winter pressures this year, of which Harrow Council received a further £1 million.

I am pleased to say that the focus on this area and the better joined-up collaboration between the NHS and local authorities, through the Government’s better care fund, is paying dividends. Social care across the country has freed up 949 beds a day since the February 2017 peak—a 39% reduction in social care-related delayed transfers of care. I am also pleased that Harrow performed well, achieving a 58% reduction in social care-related delayed transfers of care since August last year, and now has delayed transfers of care levels significantly below the England average.

The Government’s troubled families programme is also making amazing strides in supporting our society’s most vulnerable families. I am proud to say that £920 million has been committed to the programme during this spending period. As of September this year, nearly 130,000 families have achieved significant and sustained progress against the problems identified when they first entered the programme. Some 1,400 families have been working with the programme in Harrow alone during this period, and the council is forecast to have benefited from more than £3 million over the course of the scheme.

We all see that local authorities’ vital work in building strong communities that thrive is beneficial not only to them, but to wider society. Strong communities are cohesive, and it was with that in mind that the Government announced a £100 million fund to help to ease pressures on local services resulting from recent migration. The fund has so far committed a total of £832,000 to Harrow to contribute to better public services and a more cohesive society.

[Gareth Thomas]

I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging some of the council’s very good work on social care and working with troubled families. Will he acknowledge that managing the sinkhole underneath Pinner Wood School—a significant and important primary school that had to be moved—is costing the council considerable sums of money? Will he be willing to meet me and a deputation from the council to discuss whether the Government could provide any further funding to help the council manage some of those costs?

[Rishi Sunak]

With all the will in the world, there is little I can do to help on that particular matter. As the local government Minister, I have no authority or control over the schools budget. The issue he raises relates specifically to a school.

I know that council officials have been in conversation with officials from the Department for Education, but I am obviously not privy to those conversations. I am of course happy to meet him and his deputation, but I think he may be better directing that conversation toward the Department for Education. I know that close to £10 million has been invested in maintained and voluntary-aided schools in Harrow over the last few years, and that the Department for Education is refurbishing or rebuilding about 10 different schools in Harrow through the priority schools rebuilding programme, although not the particular school that he mentions.

Beyond schools, £434,000 has been committed to support Harrow in caring for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, further helping to strengthen community cohesion. However, strong communities need to be connected. The roads that our constituents travel on daily form a key part of their lives, which is why at the Budget the Chancellor announced that an extra £420 million will be made available for local authorities such as Harrow to fix potholes and carry out other road repairs, ensuring safer and better roads across our communities.

Strong communities also need well-built, affordable homes, which is why, through the Budget, the Government are supporting local authorities such as Harrow to get much-needed homes built, including through the widely welcomed lifting of the housing revenue account borrowing cap. I am pleased that we were able to maintain the new homes bonus baseline for the forthcoming year. Harrow will receive more than £4 million in new homes bonus funding in the forthcoming financial year. I am also pleased that Harrow is in conversations with the Department to receive a housing infrastructure fund grant worth almost £10 million to help with the delivery of more than 600 homes at the Grange Farm site.

Strong communities also need vibrant high streets to bring us together and ensure our towns have a beating heart. The Budget provided a boost for our high streets and a new future high streets fund. I strongly urge the local authority, in conjunction with its MPs, to bid for that fund and see what it can do to drive growth along the high streets in its community.

The hon. Member for Harrow West was right to highlight the funding formula. The current funding formula needs to be updated and replaced with a robust, straightforward approach that involves a strong link between local circumstances and the way that we allocate resources. The latest round of that consultation was issued alongside the provisional settlement last week. I know that Harrow Council has contributed to our consultations in the past, and I will be delighted to hear from it again on the particular pressures that it feels it suffers from and that should be captured within a new formula. I am sure that it will be happy to see that some things it talked about in its previous submission are covered, such as the rapidly changing population dynamics that councils such as Harrow experience on the ground. Those are absolutely things that the new formula should accurately capture, to make sure that it is sustainable not only for this year but for years into the future.

I thank the hon. Member for Harrow West for calling the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East for contributing. It is my privilege to have this job and to champion local government here in Westminster. Whether it is driving economic growth, caring for the most vulnerable in our society or building those strong, cohesive communities that we cherish, local authorities in London and across the country do an amazing job.